A Rose Between Two Worlds
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: The Doctor and the Ponds decide to set the TARDIS to random and end up in a parallel universe, where they are surprised to find that the Silurians have turned violent and are attacking London, where Torchwood are doing their best to fight them. But when the trio run to their aide, there's a shock in store for one of them when they find out who they're fighting alongside.
1. Landing at Random

A Rose Between Two Worlds

Summary: The Doctor, Amy and Rory decide to set the TARDIS to a random destination and end up in a parallel universe, where they are surprised to find that the Silurians have turned violent and are attacking London, where Torchwood are doing their best to fight them off. But when the trio run to their aide, there's a shock in store for one of them when they find out who they're fighting alongside.

Disclaimer: Only Reinette II belongs to me, not the original or anything else.

Chapter One

"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" asked the red-headed, Scottish woman sitting on the crash seat beside the TARDIS console.

"Yeah, I second that." added the blonde, English man sitting beside her.

"Oh, you are no fun, Ponds!" exclaimed the Doctor, whipping round to face them and losing his balance as he did so, having to cling to the console to keep himself upright.

"We are!" the female Pond exclaimed, removing her hands from the seat to cross her arms across her chest, which proved to be a mistake, as she moments later fell sideways, landing right on top of her husband.

"Amy and Rory Pond, you... are... BORING!" The Doctor cried, pulling another lever, an odd button here and there before falling flat on his face due to another violent shake of the console, though seemingly not minding a bit and rising up with a bounce.

"Where are we going?" Rory asked with a shout, deciding to persue the argument no further.

"No idea! I've set the TARDIS to random!" the man exclaimed gleefully, causing identical expressions of horror to appear across the Ponds' faces.

"What?!" they exclaimed in unison.

"You said you weren't boring, prove it!" he yelled in return, pulling a final lever and causing the machine to jerk so violently that it seemed for a moment as if it was going to flip right upside down. It shook like that for several minutes before coming to a jerky stop. The three occupants of the time travel machine sat back in the crash seat, each with their head leant back against the head rest of the chair.

"So, Raggedy Man." Amy began cautiously, her curiosity not longer able to be held back. "Where are we?"

"No idea!" the man exclaimed breathlessly, resuming his position with his head against the rest from where he had lifted it to see the woman. Amy saw this and leant back herself, seeing that she could not possibly win the point.

A few minutes later, the man started upwards, making for the door.

"Come along, Ponds!" the man yelled to the shocked married couple still sat down in his wake. They shared a quick, quite nervous glance before jumping up in unison and following him.

The group of three stood frozen in the doorway of the TARDIS, staring at the familiar differences of the scene before them. The city was extremely familiar to all of them.

"Wow! This is absolutely amazing, it's _London_, in _2012_! Well done, very exotic!" Rory exclaimed in frustration.

"We've barely even moved 100 miles!" Amy joined in, the two truly ganging up on the Raggedy Man now.

"Actually, Ponds, we have." The Doctor breathed, looking around with a distant expression on his face.

"How?" Amy asked, her voice suddenly much quieter, as she knew that The Doctor's distant/normal expression could not mean a good thing.

"Amy, Rory, we are in a parallel universe. And I think I know which one."

A/N: Please tell me what you think, as this is my first Doctor Who, non-crossover story. Review!


	2. Breaking and Entering

Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks to my brilliant reviewers, dream-on-sunday, Nikki, Safi-ry, randomjhhjh and Pig-Rabbit-Suk.

The Doctor was on a mission, that much was clear to Amy and Rory. He was striding so quickly towards the square of buildings before him that he could've gone without touching the ground and still kept going for a good two minutes. Although they could not really understand why, the fact that the Doctor was determined was utterly unquestionable.

"Doctor?" Amy questioned gently, trying to catch the attention of the rampaging madman. There was no response, just a slight jerk of the head in the other direction as he continued on his way.

"Doctor?!" Rory yelled, finally causing the man to flip around to face them.

"What, Ponds?!" he asked, his voice slightly strained with annoyance and impatience.

"Where are we going?" Amy asked, her own tone quite patient, for once. The man looked strangely complacent for a moment, while considering what his companion had asked him, before turning to run once more. Amy let out a loud sigh of frustration, before taking Rory's hand and following the demented Time Lord across the square, where he was pointing his sonic screwdriver at the handle of an aluminium door. This was when the Ponds really disliked the Doctor.

Nevertheless, the pair followed the madman, seeing no other real option at hand, though he did not really seem to have much more of a clue where he was going than they did, constantly changing directions and taking wrong turnings, running up and down staircases like his life depended on it. The building was a maze and, after about a minute or two of following the Doctor, they were well and truly lost.

"Oh, where are we?" Amy complained. "All I can see is stairs, it's driving me crazy."

"Have faith, Amelia Pond. We will get there eventually." the Doctor reasoned, stopping to look out of the window that occupied the majority of the wall, as if the outside world would give him so clue as to the inside of the building he was in. Amy and Rory joined him there, sharing a glance to convey the thought of '_Oh no, he's off on one again!_'

"Get where precisely, sir?" asked a female voice from the top of the staircase they were currently standing on. The three members of the TARDIS crew stopped in their tracks, still leaning heavily on the windowsill. They shared a number of glances between the three of them, before turning on the spot so as to face the woman.

Only once they had turned did they realise that the woman was not alone. She had, standing behind her, a squad team, each bearing a daunting looking gun. On instinct, Amy and Rory raised both hands into the air, palms forward to face the men. It took the Doctor a few moments to overcome his glee at being found before he mirrored their actions.

"Oh, nowhere in particular, just felt like breaking in. In which case, we need to be taken to the nearest figure of authority in this place, which would be…" the Doctor tailed off, unsure of whom the figure was. The woman was not impressed, and signaled for the men to restrain the three.

"Take them to Captain T.S. upstairs. She'll deal with them. She always deals with security anyway, which makes the rest of our jobs a hell of a lot easier. Take them away."

Three minutes later and still restrained by the huge, burly security men, which Rory was annoyed to see that Amy enjoyed a little too much, the Doctor and the Ponds had been taken to the very top floor of the mammoth skyscraper, to the office of this 'Captain T.S.', one which was, unfortunately for the guards and fortunately for the TARDIS crew, unlocked and unoccupied.

The security men began to pout and moan at this, exclaiming that they had better things to do than wait around all day for a bossy blonde to decide to come back to her office, and so decided to throw the three into the room, shut the door and guard the outside instead, so as to give their arms a rest from holding them. None of the 'prisoners' complained, Amy instead beginning to look around, flicking through papers in a filing cabinet.

"Amy, what are you doing?" the Doctor questioned, looking at his companion oddly, though to Amy this was a normal look, for the Doctor anyway.

"Looking through stuff. Something here has to have her name on it; it's her office after all. We know she's bossy, blonde and female, and that her initials are T.S., know anyone like that?"

"Well,… no."

"Great." Amy moved to the desk, looking through photographs resting on it. "Hey, photos! These might help."

"Brilliant." the Doctor and Rory commented, coming over to where the redhead was standing. The two companions, of course, had no chance of knowing the woman, merely looking at the pictures of babies and young children, but it was the other picture on the desk, framed in purple and silver, that the Doctor took notice of. It was a picture of a man, a woman and a little girl. Now, the girl was a complete stranger to the Doctor, but the couple were people that he knew very well. Very well, indeed.

"It couldn't be. I couldn't have found her, no. Not after all this time."

"Doctor, what are you talking about? Found who?" Rory asked, in genuine confusion at the Doctor's whispered outburst.

"A friend of mine. I lost her so long ago. She crossed over to a parallel world, when the Cybermen attacked. Do you know about the Cybermen?"

"Those ghost things that turned into robots, yeah. They were terrifying." Amy whispered, a shiver running down her spine at the mention of them.

"Well, the Void, the gap between the worlds, sealed itself. So, I could never see her again." Tears were filling the Doctor's eyes.

"What was her name?" asked Amy. The Doctor opened his mouth to answer her, but closed it again after the bossy, blonde Captain T.S. swept into the room, stopping in her tracks at the sight of the three strangers looking through her photographs.

"Rose."

A/N: An update, at last. Please review!


	3. Captains and Questions

Chapter Three

A/N: Thanks to Safi-ry, Pig-Rabbit-Suk, Delilah Moon, jake2490, Guest and Eye-in-the-Glass for reviewing for me!

"Rose?" the Doctor questioned once again, waiting for the blonde woman to react, as she had always done when seeing him before, with a bright smile and a cheeky laugh. But neither appeared on her blank expression, just a slight frown of confusion.

"Do I know you?" Rose responded, still utterly bemused at who these people were. In a single moment, the Doctor became just as confused as she was. Rose didn't recognise him. What had happened to her?

"Rose, it's me. It's… the…" the Doctor stopped in his sentence, sighing and bringing his head to rest in his hands. Of course she didn't recognise him. He had regenerated. "Oh."

"Look, I'm really busy. What are you doing here?" Rose asked, subtly glancing to the watch on her wrist.

"Yeah, sorry to disturb you. We were looking for an old friend of mine around here, but it doesn't matter now." the Doctor gabbled, looking once again at the family picture on the desk. "So, Captain T.S., are you… ?"

"Tyler-Smith." Rose cut in.

"What?" the Doctor asked her, huffing a little at his flow being interrupted.

"That's my name." she explained, speaking slowly as if to a small child. The Doctor found it quite infuriating, but chose to ignore it. After all, she didn't know that he knew her, so it could hardly be helped that she told him things he already knew.

"Married name?" he questioned casually, already knowing the answer.

"Yes. Eight years." This was the sole piece of information that had shocked the man. In this reality, it had been so long since he had left them. Rose had truly moved on.

"Congratulations." he told her, a little absentmindedly. Everything he heard about her was another blow to him. Things that he should have known. Amy noticed this, leaning her head to one side as she tried to gauge the Doctor's reactions. She had never seen him this distant, and so sought to bring him out of his trance like state as soon as possible. In truth, it was frightening her.

"Is that your kid?" the Scot asked the blonde woman, who nodded almost immediately, her gaze taking a little longer to pull away from the stranger that knew her name.

"Yeah. That was taken four years ago, she's seven now." Rose admitted, a smile lighting up her features besides the frowns of confusion that had formerly marred them.

"She's beautiful." Amy commented, looking down at the picture once more. Another nod followed this from Rose, whose face had softened dramatically at the mention of her daughter.

"Yes, she is." the woman agreed, but she was now a little more distracted, as the Doctor was once again pacing the room. "Why are you still here? I mean, you've said that you couldn't find your friend, so shouldn't you try somewhere else?"

"Yeah, probably." the man responded, showing no sign at all of having taken note of her words. Amy and Rory shared a glance at this. They were used to the Doctor not listening, but this was getting a bit ridiculous.

"Who the hell are you, anyway?" Rose repeated, well aware that she was speaking the same words over again.

"Still doesn't matter. I'm just a person. And this is Amy and Rory Pond." the man added at the end of his sentence, taking note of the two people stood behind him.

"Williams." Rory corrected with a sigh, to be met with looks from both his wife and from the Doctor that equally said '_Shut up!_' "Alright, sorry!"

"Nice to meet you. I think." Rose told the couple, the final two words spoken under her breath.

"Yeah, you too." the blonde man replied, inclining his head at the woman. Another awkward silence.

Suddenly, a huge sound exploded, shaking the very ground beneath their feet. It was so violent, in fact, that the four occupants of Captain Tyler's office fell from side to side before their bodies collided forcefully with the floor.

"What the hell was that?!" Amy exclaimed, after the tremors had ceased, wrapping a single arm around Rory, who, up until a moment ago, she had fallen on top of, for the second time that day.

"No idea." the Doctor replied, rubbing the spot on the back of his head where it had collided with the sideboard. "Captain?"

"I don't know. I really don't." was all that Rose said, before reaching into the side pocket of her military slacks, pulling out a handheld transceiver and pressing the button down. The next words, she spoke into the gadget. "Larry? Larry, what's happening?"

A few muffled words came from the black machine within the next couple of minutes and Rose responded with a nod here and there. "Yeah, can you send him up please? Thanks."

Barely a moment later, the Doctor looked up once again, taking no pauses before beginning his interrogation.

"Send who up?" the man questioned the captain, the tender spot on his head suddenly seeming to be less painful.

"The other captain." Rose replied, placing her receiver down on the desk. "He's got a bit more experience than I have with this sort of thing, so he might be able to tell us what the hell is going on around here."

"I find that hard to believe." the brown haired man commented, his voice clear, but extremely quiet. Even if she had only been a member of the New Torchwood Institute for long, Rose Tyler had most likely had more alien encounters in a single week than the whole lot of them had had in their entire lives put together.

The group stood once more in silence for yet another two minutes, until a loud knock sounded on the door of the office. At the summons from the blonde woman, who was rearranging the picture frames from when they had fallen during the shock. However, that shock was nothing compared to the one that the Doctor received once the wooden panel had opened, revealing the captain stood on the other side of it.

The Doctor had come face to face with himself.

A/N: Ooooh, it's about to get interesting. I sense fireworks. But I will only get the fireworks to explode if you review for them!


	4. Discovery

Chapter Four

A/N: Thank you very much to Safi Ry, Delilah Moon, Nikki Pond, tastycakes817, Allie, Pig-Rabbit-Suk, H3LLOmynameiskibs and Ty for all being brilliant reviewers.

Despite the state of emergency that the Torchwood Institute was in, for three minutes at least, not one of the five occupants of the room had moved or spoken. Instead, they had stood in statuesque silence, none of them knowing at all what to say.

For three of the group, the silence had merely surfaced. They did not know what had caused them not to speak, and had only followed the example of the others, as they often did. The other two, however, the two men stood in the doorway, were the causes of the silence, and they were perfectly aware of why that had occurred.

"You called me?" the first man questioned, looking over his shoulder to see Rose. The woman seemed to be in a bit of a daze for just a moment, but came back down to Earth immediately upon hearing her name.

"Oh, yeah. Do you know what's going on?" she responded, questioning him in turn. The man only shrugged by the way of an answer, shaking his head as he approached her.

"Not a clue. The team downstairs are trying to work it out, but they aren't having much luck right now. It looks like we'll just have to wait." he answered her, moving closer to wrap an arm around the woman. He seemed to have momentarily forgotten that the other three were there, until the Doctor coughed pointedly, extremely uncomfortable with the current situation.

"You're the guy from the photo." Amy pointed out, either not minding the Time Lord's embarrassment or revelling in the blush that was spreading over his cheeks. '_Probably the second one_.' Rory thought, albeit a touch bitterly.

"Yep." the brown haired man answered, leaning over to view said photograph and laughing as it came into sight. "Crikey, that's an old one!"

"I know. Bournemouth, 2013." This was another statement that had shocked the Doctor, who, in truth, was still attempting to get his head around the fact that the other man was even present. There was a different time zone in the alternate universe, that he had known, but he had not expected for the difference to be so huge. In this world, it had been almost a decade since the Daleks had attempted to conquer their world. In this world, Rose had lived nine whole years without him.

"Um… hello? Guy from photo?" Amy questioned, catching the attention of the man in question. "Captain… Smith, I assume?"

"Yes." he answered simply, glancing over at Rose with a look of pure contentment, before turning his attentions quickly back to Amy.

"Right, hi. So, what is actually going on around here? Because I'm a little bit confused right now." she said, her voice wavering a little, as she was now becoming unnerved by the Doctor's behaviour. It reminded her of the Gangers situation, and the copy of the man, and that was terrifying enough. She did not need the experience repeated.

"Well, we've had no signals from alien ships, the airspace is totally clear. It isn't of extra-terrestrial origin, whatever it is."

Everyone in the room fell silent once more, each of their faces twisted in confusion. If the cause of the sudden earthquake was not an extra-terrestrial warning, then what could it possibly be?

"And you're sure it wasn't just a geographical earthquake?" the Doctor questioned Captain Smith, his eyebrows raised, clearly showing that he did not believe strongly in the man's competence.

"Not this far away from the plate margins. It's almost impossible for a shock wave to occur so strongly so far away from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and anyway… the tremors only occurred beneath this city, not anywhere else at all. Right at the borderline of London, there was no earthquake."

This answer knocked the Doctor off balance a little. It had been a very intelligent answer to give, one that the Time Lord probably would have given himself, even though, technically, he had done so.

"Yes. So, whatever happened, it was man made, not natural, or extra-terrestrial. That narrows it down a little." Rose summarised, glancing down at her desk, as a slightly distant expression appeared on her face. Captain Smith turned towards her quickly, noticing right away the change in her expression.

"Rose, it will be alright, you know. She isn't in any danger." the man told his wife, wrapping his arms tightly around her.

"But how can you be so sure about that?" Rose questioned him, breaking away from him as she blinked tears back from her eyes.

"Have I ever been wrong?" he questioned, the bouncy sarcasm in his voice showing clearly through his words. Though she did not quite know why, the woman allowed a tiny laugh to escape her throat, though she could not prevent it from being saddened, nevertheless.

"No." she simply responded, the smile still present on her face. She then reached up, placing one hand on the right side of her husband's face as she pressed her lips gently to his.

This display of emotions sparked a variety of reactions in the room. A wide smile broke out on Amy's face, Rory remained mainly indifferent, though smirked a little at the look on his own wife's face. Meanwhile, the Doctor had to refrain from wincing at the scene before him. This was his friend, moved on without a thought for him, and his former self, making her truly happy. '_I am probably glad about that, though. After all, she deserves to be happy.'_ he thought.

"So, should we go down to the labs? Then you can explain a bit more. Assuming you have a lab, that is." Rory suggested, more excited than he would care to admit about the fact.

"Well, actually, Mr. Pond… I think we should hand this over to the man you travelled with. After all, sir, with all that extra time in the TARDIS under your belt, you should be a little more experienced than I am."

A loud gasp echoed in the room, as Rose turned to face the man, her mouth still agape with shock. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke her question, her voice filled with disbelief.

"Doctor?"

A/N: Finally, she gets it! Please review! Next chapter, we'll find out the cause of the problem.


	5. Accusations with Anguish

Chapter Five

A/N: Thank you to tastycakes817, Safi-Ry-Quin, Delilah Moon, H3LLOmynameiskibs, Bcldiva95 and chocolaty for reviewing the last chapter.

After just a moment, the Doctor turned to face Rose, the woman's question still hanging in the air.

"Doctor?" she repeated, her voice just as confused as it had been before, although now, it was tinted with hope. "Doctor, is it really you?"

As he glanced upwards, meeting the young woman's gaze, the Time Lord could not refuse her question again. Of course, he knew how much she would have missed him, as he had missed her with equal strength, and so he could not deny her the hope she had wished for since he had left her on Bad Wolf Bay.

"Yes." he told the woman quietly, hardly showing any emotion, despite the fact that his heart was near bursting with happiness. "Yes, Rose, it's me."

For another minute at most, the blonde remained silent, her mouth opening and closing, as if she could not find the words she wished to speak. The Doctor, of course, did not blame her for this. After all, he had felt precisely the same when she had approached him during the battle with the Daleks, and so knew the feeling of shock that partnered the rediscovery of her friend.

Then, to the surprise of all present, including Rose herself, the blonde walked forward, held out her arms and threw them around the neck of her old friend, holding the man tightly to her. It took a moment for the man to comprehend what was happening, but once he had done so, he embraced the woman in return, hardly believing how lucky he was to have her recognise him, after all that had changed. As he had never thought that he would see her again, the surprise was very much a positive one.

"Oh, I can't believe you're here!" she exclaimed over his shoulder. "I never thought I'd see you again. Not after the Daleks."

"I know." he replied, with a sigh. "I never thought I could come back either, that's why I didn't try. I got here by accident."

Rose was frozen. She slowly pulled away from the man, leaving her arms hanging limply at her side. "You didn't even try to find me." she asked, seeming to be appalled by this, as if she could not believe she was hearing what she was. "You were going to just leave me here for the rest of my life, wondering if you would come back again!"

"It wasn't like that!" the Doctor exclaimed in response. "I wanted to come back for you, of course I did, but I knew that it wasn't possible!"

"You've come to this world three times!" she screamed, her face reddening with embarrassment and stress. The point was a fair one, in her eyes, as the claim was true. The Doctor had been to the parallel world a minimum of three times, as the woman had been present on all of these occasions, so why had he seen fit to argue that he was not able to return? "If I managed to cross the Void into your world, surely you could have done the same with the TARDIS!"

"Those crossings were an accident!" he argued back, becoming a little exasperated.

"You could have tried!" she screamed, tears falling down her face. This time, the Doctor gave no response, just stepped forward once again to wrap his arms around her. For a few seconds, she fought back, hitting and struggling against the man's grip, but soon enough, she stopped trying to resist and relaxed with a sob into his chest.

"I'm sorry." he whispered, truly meaning the apology. "I'm so sorry, Rose, I really am. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry." she replied in a sigh. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. It's just that… well, I've been waiting nine years for you to come back and see me. I was just a little annoyed that you hadn't even tried."

"Rose, if I had thought that it was possible, I would have-" the Doctor, before Rose held up a hand to stop him from speaking.

"You don't have to explain. I know that you would have done." she sighed, before returning her attention to the desk, to the photographs that lay flat on the surface, having fallen during the shocks. After checking each of them individually, to ensure that no cracks had appeared in them, Rose returned her gaze to the group around her. "We still need to find out what caused this to happen. If we know, then we might be able to stop it."

"You're right." Captain Smith agreed, nodding his head immediately. "London might not be safe for long if we don't."

"That's the top priority of Torchwood, to keep the planet safe from extra-terrestrial goings on. If we don't find out what species is behind this, and how they are operating from the planet itself… Torchwood might as well not even exist. We'll be disbanded, if we're lucky enough for the world not to be destroyed. This is my life now, Johnny. I can't lose it."

"I know, Rose, and I'm going to do everything I can to discover the truth." the elder Captain told his colleague, flashing her a smile that made her heart draw close to melting, as it had always done, ever since she had married him. "I trust that I can rely on your help. All of you."

"Of course you can." Amy answered, before anyone else had the chance. "With us lot here, they won't dare mess with planet Earth."

Before Rose had a chance to thank her, the door of her office burst open, revealing the woman who had corner the trio on the staircase.

"Captains, we've received a report from Muswell Hill." the woman informed her superior, panting a little, due to the fact that she had ascended the staircase at a running pace. "There's been a collapse of a primary school, from an unexplained earthquake. The entire building has gone down."

"Which primary school was this?" the blonde returned immediately, the fear in her voice quite evident.

"It was Hollickwood, Captain." the woman replied, seeming a little downhearted by the fact. Her captain was more than downhearted as she let out a strangled cry, her head flipping over her shoulder so that she was facing her husband, who had a similar expression of anguish on his face.

"Reinette."

A/N: What has happened to Reinette? And who is she? Any guesses, pop them into a review! If you don't have any, review anyway!


	6. Above and Below

Chapter Six

A/N: Thank you to chocolaty, H3LLOmynameiskibs and Kikuneechan for reviewing the previous chapter.

Beside the enormous pile of smoldering rubble that lay within the area of Muswell Hill in London, a large black van pulled up outside of the gates that housed it, the doors of the vehicle sliding open before it had even ceased its movement, to reveal Rose, Johnny, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and the woman from the staircase, whom the group had discovered was named Victoria.

Outside the building, hundreds of children were assembled, watching as their school burned to the ground, the wreckage sending clouds of smoke up to a mile into the air. However, in that group, Rose could not immediately see Reinette, something that spiked fear in her before she had even set her foot on the pavement.

"I can't see her." she told her husband, who seemed calmer than she was herself, if not by a great margin, and only for the purpose of one of them remaining logical in mind, for the sake of Reinette. "Johnny!"

"I know, I'm looking!" the man replied, the exclamation in his voice not one of annoyance, but of fear. He was also riled by the fact that he could not see his young daughter, and by the terrible thought that something may have happened to her, a thought that was beginning to consume his wife with dread.

However, once they had reached the front of the group of children, who were all extremely fearful of the fact that the police who were investigating the goings on had large guns that were being aimed in all directions, except for a few of the boys, who were merely in awe of the weapons, as young boys always seemed to be, if Rose judged by her twelve year old brother, Tony, who had been studying fighter planes for months on end, in an attempt to be able to recreate the perfect wingspan of an AD Scout, something that not even their father, Pete, could understand, but that Johnny found absolutely fascinating.

"Can you see her yet?" she asked, a little more calm entering into her voice, as Johnny had taken her hand, prompting her to become a little more composed.

"I'm not sure, Rose, there's a lot of kids that look similar." the man pointed out, but his wife was not listening, as she had bolted forward in the direction of the wreckage, and in the direction of the small blonde girl who was sprinting towards the woman so quickly that her hair lay horizontally on the wind that was being created.

"Reinette!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around the girl and clutching tightly to her, as if she were fearful of her disappearing in her arms, should she not hold on tightly enough. "Oh, Nette, I'm here. I've got you."

"Mum!" she cried, her voice shaking as much as she was herself, as her mother was doing beside her. "I don't know what happened. They just got us out of the school, they said that it was urgent, and by the time they had just got all of us out, there was a huge explosion. We were lucky to get out when we did."

"It's alright, Nette. It's alright." the woman sighed, holding onto the girl even more tightly, as she felt an arm, the arm of Johnny, she knew, wrap around her shoulders and his other around Reinette's, the three of them together in a huddle that seemed to be impossible to break.

Still standing outside of the gates, the Doctor watched the reunion from a distance, an emptiness appearing in his heart, as he realised that the path he had chosen meant that the Meta-Crisis, the man that had been born of his own hand, had the one thing in life that he could never truly have. He had a family.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked the man, bringing him out of his reverie. Her voice was soft, for the second time in only a day, a feat that the man could hardly believe he had remained alive to see, as it was so rare, but still he appreciated it. It reminded him of the family of sorts that he had.

"Yeah. I'm fine." he answered. In truth, he was not certain of how convincing he had been when he did so, and neither were the two Ponds stood beside him, but none of the trio mentioned this fact, choosing that silence would, for once, be the best course of action.

After a moment, the four remaining people stood outside of the gates stepped through them, acknowledging the glances of the half thousand children inside of them, the looks of shock and fear on their faces, which they knew were for the explosion and not for them, though a couple of them had doubted that fact inside their minds, still remained, as prominent in their features as they had been before the black van had even arrived.

Once they had reached the family, who were still too caught up in their relief to notice the arrival of the group stood above them, they merely stood in waiting for the trio to end their embrace. They had to wait only another few moments for them to do so, but eventually they did, standing to face the Doctor and his entourage, though Rose kept her arm tightly wrapped around her daughter's shoulder, not willing to lose the girl from her fingertips, let alone from her sight.

"We need to find out what has caused this." the Time Lord told the group. "We can't let them hurt innocent people, and we have to find out how they could have attacked from the air without being tracked entering the atmosphere. It was extra-terrestrial technology, it can't have been someone from Earth."

"But they didn't attack from the air." the young girl said suddenly, shocking the remainder of the group she stood within.

"What do you mean, Nette?" Johnny asked, his facial features deepened into a frown.

"The school didn't explode because of an attack from above." she elaborated, her voice a little stronger, despite the fact that every eye amongst them was on her, along with quite a few of the children's'. "It was attack from below."

"But that isn't possible." Rose commented. "Is it?"

"Yes." he answered swiftly, his voice heavily burdened with the fear of what was to come. "Silurians."

A/N: Uh oh! By the way, the name of their daughter will be explained in the next chapter or two. Please review!


	7. Confessions in the Moonlight

Chapter Seven

A/N: Thank you to tastycakes817, chocolaty, H3LLOmynameiskibs and Zarelyn for reviewing the last chapter.

That evening, the group slept within the walls of the Torchwood Institute, in the office of Captain Smith himself, as it was the safest place to remain after the attack, it being almost impregnable to any outsider, other than the Doctor, of course.

For the Ponds and for Rose and Reinette, sleep had come relatively easily, though neither of the wakened men could understand how it could have done for the latter, after the day she had endured, what with the destruction of her school building, and the realisation of the alien forces behind it. They were only a little less surprised by the fact that her mother was consumed by slumber, as she had spent so much time worrying during that day that she was unable to concentrate on anything but that.

Now, the only ones awake were the two men who had once mirrored each other's images, resting against the wall on opposite sides of the room, one beside his companions and the other beside his family, his hand entwined with his daughter's. Neither had been able to summon the capacity to sleep, though whether it was due to the excitement of the unknown or the fear of the same, neither was able to see.

"This is still normal for you, I suppose." John said to the other man, keeping his voice low, so as not to wake the others, particularly his wife, who he felt certainly deserved the rest, after the hellish day she had had. "Fighting monsters, watching disasters happen all around you, it's just like the old days."

"They're just days to me." the Doctor responded, his voice more monotonous than his acquaintance's. "I never stopped fighting them, or watching disasters around me. And I've faced far worse things than you could have done, even if you've worked for Torchwood all this time."

"I don't doubt it." the man sighed, glancing across the room, in the direction of the window, where the moon was risen to its peak in the sky. "I may have become a normal working man, but you will have taken off in the TARDIS, doing what you've always done, what you will always do. Save people's lives and run away before you can be thanked. With all this excitement, I'm surprised that you even remember me. Or Rose."

The Doctor snapped his neck around to face the man, from where the pair of them had been facing the moonlight. He could feel his blood almost boiling with rage at the accusation, but attempted to conceal this fact, trying desperately to remain the one who saved face, as he had always been.

"Technically, we're the same person." the man pointed out, knowing that the statement was not entirely factual, but using it anyway, given that it was the only idea he had as a comeback and he did not want to give the other version of himself the satisfaction of thinking he had silenced him, during the wait that would undoubtedly follow. "You're me, I'm you. So, if you remember Rose, then I will as well. Besides, I could never forget her."

"She's not an easy person to forget." the Meta-Crisis replied, his voice a little more relenting, apologetic perhaps, than it had been during the last time he had spoken. It seemed that he had noticed the extent of the offence he had caused. "She never has been, really, and she hasn't changed to make that any truer in the past few years, either."

"How much have I missed?" the Doctor suddenly asked, shocking his acquaintance into silence. "Nine years since the last time I saw Rose, and look how much she's done. She has a child now, a little girl of her own, and I didn't even know about her existence. I didn't even know she'd gotten married, to be honest, though I probably should have done. We are the same person, after all."

"Yes, I suppose so." responded Johnny, who seemed to deliberately be avoiding the question, or seemed to be in the Time Lord's mind, in any case. However, a minute later, he did answer. "I married Rose in 2009, a few months after you disappeared. There's a picture of our wedding day on the desk, actually. It's one of mine. She doesn't have one in her office, because she's not quite as high up in the office as me. Hardly anyone comes into my workplace who doesn't already know about our marriage, anyway."

The man stood for a moment, reaching for a pair of photographs on his desk. When he sat down, the Doctor could see the layout of each of them clearly.

The first image was of Johnny and Rose's wedding day, as he had said it would be. The man in the bow tie did not concentrate much on the attire of the Meta-Crisis, as he could hardly breathe for the appearance of Rose. She was dressed all in white, as a bride traditionally would be, and her dress was slim fitting, with crystal roses adorning the bodice and satin ones adorning the skirt. Presumably the floral touch had been an idea of Jackie's, as it seemed like something that she would have done, as a show of intelligence. '_She looks beautiful.'_ the man thought. '_But I should've been there.'_

Leaving no more time for reminiscing, the man turned his face to the second picture, the one which the captain was clutching tightly to the frame of. Once again, it was an image of Rose and Johnny, the latter with his arm wrapped around his wife, once again standing in the doorway of a church. However, on this occasion, they were not alone, as the blonde was holding to her chest a child in a lace blanket, dressed in a gown of the same colour. '_It must have been Reinette's christening.'_ he supposed, but his thoughts were cut short as the man spoke once again.

"It was actually Rose's idea to name her Reinette, you know." he told the extra-terrestrial man, by means of an explanation. "She wanted to have a reminder of what we'd come through, what we'd lost and what we could do for the future. She knew the relationship I'd almost had with Madame de Pompadour, of course she did, and she wanted to give us a way to move on. Reinette was our second chance, the saviour for us, and so that's what we named her."

At that moment, it was very clear to the Doctor. For Johnny, his family was everything, and that was why they needed to fight the threat to their world. For the sake of second chances, they needed to win.

A/N: A lot of people commented on why she was named Reinette, and I wanted to explain that she was a second chance for them, and so they named her after the person they wanted to move on from. Hope it makes a little more sense. Please review!


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